IMPROVEMENTS are being made after a joint inspection found that children with special educational needs and disabilities were being “let down” by Bury Council.

During a re-inspection of the borough’s provision for children and their families, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and Ofsted found that progress has been made in all eight areas of weakness highlighted during their last inspection in August 2017.

However, the independent watchdogs found that "insufficient" progress had been made in three assessed areas.

Geoff Little, chief executive of Bury Council and accountable officer of NHS Bury Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), said: “We welcome the re-visit of Bury’s SEND services and appreciate the findings of the inspectors.

“It is reassuring that Bury has made sufficient progress to improve in the majority of areas identified as a weakness back in 2017, but we recognise that there is more to do on these remaining issues which the inspectors have highlighted.”

Progress had been made in strategic leadership, services working together, and children with educational needs and disabilities being accurately and consistently identified by schools.

In March this year, Bury’s Local Offer — a directory of services to support families of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) — was relaunched. Children, young people and their families helped improve the website to make it “user-friendly.”

Inspectors praised health and care bodies for engaging with parents as “equal partners at strategic level.”

Other improvements include supporting the Bury2gether parent forum, working with partners to provide “holistic and tailored” care and reducing waiting times for physiotherapy, assessments and treatments.

Inspectors found that further work was needed in sharing information between services.

Bury Council said an action plan was in place to address these issues, including creating a joint commissioning team, ensuring services “talk to each other better” and creating a single point of access for parents.

Dr Jeffrey Schryer, chair of NHS Bury CCG, said: “We recognise the importance of partnership working to deliver the changes; this includes health, care, education and also local families.

"Key to this is the coming together of the commissioning functions of Bury Council and the CCG to create the right environment to plan better care and make decisions together.

"This new way of working is vital if we are to improve services and meet the needs of children, young people and their families in the future.

"We now have the right systems and structures securely in place to accelerate the pace at which these changes can be implemented.”